[afnog] Re: Request for input: The Working Group on Internet Governance

[Brian Candler]

On Fri, Nov 19, 2004 at 11:21:31AM +0100, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> > Take the DNS root, for instance. Now, hardly anyone actually *likes*
> > the ICANN system (it's expensive and unwieldy), but the Internet
> > community have accepted it as the best way for continued stability
> > in the DNS, for the time being at least.
> 
> No, unless you define the "Internet community" as "the set of people
> who accept ICANN" :-) Internet users never accepted ICANN, they simply
> use it because they have little choice.

OK, how about "use (accept) it grudgingly"?

The community could act together if they wished, although I suspect that
would only happen if the ICANN process were *totally* broken (that is,
domains stopped working, registrations stopped working, root server
operators withdrew their goodwill etc), and there would be enough quiet
words in ears to stop it getting to that stage.

As long as you can still register a domain under .com, and it only costs you
a few dollars a year, the system works as far as end-users are concerned.

It does seem stupid that it takes a multi-million dollar committee to
replace what one man used to do through mutual respect though.

Regards,

Brian.